Laughter & the love of friends

I came across this image in my files recently. It’s a cake I did over 20 years ago for a friend who knew she was dying and wanted to have a final goodbye party. While I visited her in hospital, she came upon the idea of getting a cake. Debra was a talented graphic designer and so the design of the cake became a project for her.
Back and forth we went with ideas (phone calls, it was an era before the internet). She wanted fruit. She wanted flowers. She wanted a saying. She spent many hours finding the right one and this is the one she decided upon.
I was fairly new to cake decorating at the time and was careful to get it right. The text was written on tracing paper, carefully transferred to fondant with pin pricks and then executed with dark brown buttercream.
When I brought the cake to her party, she was delighted with the results. At this point, Debra was weak so we all sat around her bedside, watching videos of her visit to South Africa when she was feeling fine. We ate cake and drank wine and said our goodbyes.
It was a sad occasion but I know that thinking about the cake gave Debra a focus for a few hours while in hospital. At the very least, I gave her that.

I knew the gift wasn’t so much the cake but how much time and the hours Debra spent designing and thinking about the cake. She was one of the most beautiful and talented women I had ever met. What a loss.